Net Neurality - Information, Mine or Yours?

Within the last few years, it has become so that you can't get anything done without the use of the internet. For me this includes banking, class registration, program transfer, cell phone customer service, getting required information about my courses and even some shopping. Consequently, the more information we give out about ourselves online, the more we fuel both public and private interests on the internet.

Private interests could include social networks such as MySpace or Facebook, Skype Messaging, online banking, registration, e-mails ect. However, when taking park in these "private" services, I can't help but wonder who is having access to my information. It seems that there is a grey area between public and private services more recently; this raises issues of security or privacy. For example, when you sign up for a hotmail account, your e-mails can be traced for recurring words or topics. This information is then given to advertisers and in flies the span mail. Have you ever wondered why you might get e-mails from your favourite clothing stores? Even more common is the use of Facebook. And in signing up for this social network your information such as your political views, age, interests or relationship status can be shared with third parties.

Another shocking example of this occurred just in the last week. It has been discovered that the Chinese government has been monitoring, tracing and storing messages sent on Skype. This includes tracing sensitive keywords relating to political topics. This has sparked anger in a lot of Skype users. With the blurring of public and private interests on the internet this has raised issue of privacy, security, sharing of information and the right to information.